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1.31 Open Beta Test Plan - Week 4

Good news! Gophur says that the avalanche of new tickets from the first 2 weeks of Beta is now a slow trickle. The team is working hard to plow through the list so we can get 1.31 out the door. Our third week of Beta focus testing gave us a good idea as to how campaign play will work with 1.31. We had a snafu setting up command permissions, so the general player base was not able to use the command functions, only staff. The commands worked, we just need to beat the subscription code into compliance. Now it's on to week 4 and some good old fashioned bombing!

We hosted a 12 hour battle on Wednesday, giving Beta testers access to all vehicles. Capture mechanics were run through their paces, infantry, tanks and air tested out fighting in the rain and darkness. We got some very good feedback, mostly about how much more intense the combat is. Pilots were impressed with the new cloud layer, encouraging them to try new air combat tactics. Infantry and tankers report that the new grass, tress and shadows bring a whole new depth to the game. We're very pleased with this feedback and thankful to everyone for participating.

Now we're looking for some comprehensive feedback on air combat and bombing in 1.31. Wednesdays focus test will need bombers to come out and drop eggs on various targets: factories, buildings, ABs, vehicles etc. We need feedback on bomb effectiveness and damage effects. The Thursday focus test is going to be air to air combat. Come out and run your fighter planes through their paces and see how air combat plays out with the new weather cycles and cloud layer.

Test Parameters (update) : we'll be setting up an AO between two towns for the ground fight. Players taking part in the air to ground (CAS) testing need to fly to that AO and do what CAS entails, bomb tanks! (and trucks and what have you but bombs versus tanks is the crux of the changes being tested) ...

... the focus here is not air to air and how many CAS aircraft you can shoot down so fighter jocks taking part please keep in mind that shooting down CAS aircraft destroys the test being conducted. ie: please don't do it :)

We will have an air to air day on Thursday, the following day. Of course we'll need some players to play test bomb target by driving tanks in and around the ground AO. It's a good opportunity to have some tank versus tank combat too.

In addition to bombing tanks (because this is a change we have to test the success of before we can know if it needs more or not) we would like some bomber pilots to bomb the buildings to test all the new ones (think of the big cities that have all new buildings in them) and of course to guage level bombing considerations with the new cloud layer (weather) ... if some would care to wander over to the RDP factories in all 3 countries that would be useful feedback also.